One Night in Charlottesville, Part I

There are hundreds—if not thousands—of drinking stories involving my friends and me. But few hold a place as dear in our hearts as the tale of a night in Charlottesville, VA in February 2002. It is frequently repeated and discussed whenever more than two of the seven key players are gathered together; especially when we’re assembled because one of those individuals is getting married. The contrast between “drunken idiot yelling/ shoving/ eating/ hunting/ slamming/ disappearing/ escaping/ etc...” and “mature man marrying” is too sharp not to inspire awe and retellings of the great adventure.

The trip arose from very basic origins: Esq was in his first year of law school at the University of Virginia, and wanted his boys to come hang out for a night on the town. Nearing Charlottesville, BlahBlahBlah and I wondered which highway exit we were supposed to take to get to Esq’s apartment. That question was answered, however, when a towering, glowing Hardee's star appeared over the trees that lined an upcoming exit ramp. Any Washington & Jefferson grad (pre Class of ’06) worth his salt has taken an intoxicated 3 a.m. trip to the Hardee's drive-thru, and subsequently inhaled the greasiest—and most satisfying—patties of ground meat to ever get adorned with bacon, cheese, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and buns. When we took the exit and found Esq’s apartment building to be a parking lot away from the giant star that had guided us, it just felt…right.

The five of us—Chief, Baby Joey, Butters, BBB, and I—knocked on Esq’s door, and were greeted by the man himself, who was holding an open 30 pack of Milwaukee’s Best (Beast) Light. We were each handed a cold can as we filed past him. Court was in session.

Our buddy Motown and his wife (“Mrs. Motown,” though at the time she was still just his girlfriend) arrived a short while later, having driven from their home in a nearby Virginia town where Motown worked as a corrections officer at a prison. His new career path was hilarious to those of us who knew Motown. A generally jovial guy, he was ever so quick to settle disputes with his fists and muscles, which are as big as his near constant grin. Hours after I first met Motown, back in college, I watched him dish out a thorough beatdown to a guy behind a dorm building. Motown wasn’t a student at W&J, but his best friend was, as was a Phi Si with whom he had beefed the previous summer. Motown had decided, therefore, to kill two birds with one stone by visiting his buddy and taking care of his unfinished business all in the same night. His best friend (who is also a friend of mine) and I, along with 3 or 4 others, stood guard to be sure the fight stayed one-on-one (Phi Sis typically preferred 20-vs.-1 odds than to shoot a fair one). For approximately three minutes, Motown manhandled his opponent, delivering punches, body slams, and a few rib kicks—before we finally stepped in and pulled him off the poor sap—with childlike enthusiasm, grinning and playfully talking trash. As his friend walked the beaten guy back to the Phi Si house, I joined the others in laughingly congratulating Motown, all while thinking to myself, “Thank god he’s on my side.”

The eight of us at Esq’s apartment spent the next few hours trading stories, playing games, and annihilating the better part of four Beast 30 packs. I believe the final tally as we were leaving for the bars was around 96 cans of beer that had been sent to their final resting place. That’s 12 beers per person. Yessir. And now it was time to unleash ourselves upon Charlottesville.

Our first stop was a large, crowded sports bar [I cannot remember the name, but if one of my friends does, I will update the blog later]. As we reached the door and the bouncer who was checking IDs, Chief suddenly realized that he had left behind his driver’s license…in Pittsburgh. He explained this to the doorman, who was far from sympathetic. Motown, thinking fast, stepped forward and flashed his corrections officer badge. “Don’t worry,” he assured the bouncer, “I’ll keep an eye on him.” It was nothing short of ironic to see one of my friends taken into a bar by a badge.

As we filed up the steps into the bar, Chief began a “Hear we go, Steelers” chant—the same nauseating, slack-jawed chorus typically heard in and around Heinz Field in the fall. Only we were in central Virginia. In February. For Yinzers, logic is rarely an option.

Despite his conspicuous introduction to Charlottesville’s nightlife, Chief was far from being our biggest problem child. Not long after getting ourselves drinks, BBB decided he was going to try out the pool tables. But when he walked over to a busy table and placed a dollar bill down on the railing, one of the guys playing on the table informed him that this bar had a different policy regarding their billiards tables. Instead of them being pay-per-play, bar patrons had to put down a credit card and “rent” a table for a set amount of time. Unfortunately, BBB had long ago drunk himself past the point of comprehending this adjustment to his plan to secure a pool table. Seeing a confused look on his face, the other guy picked up BBB’s dollar and handed it back to him, while trying to explain the rules once again. BBB looked at him, and then slammed his dollar bill back down on the railing. The guy once again picked up the bill and handed it back to BBB, who once again slammed it down on the table. Negotiations were at an impasse.

All of this caught the attention of a bouncer, who pulled BBB over to where the rest of us were located. The owner and another bouncer came over as well, and I found myself standing between them and my boys, playing “Sober Representative” for BBB. The owner wanted to remove him (and probably the rest of us as well), but I did my best to reason with him. It didn’t help, of course, that while I talked to him Chief stood behind me calling one of the bouncers “Flava Flav.” Shouts of “Hey Flav, where’s your giant clock?” bellowed from over my right shoulder while I tried to convince the bar owner that my other friend wasn’t too drunk to be in the establishment. ‘Tis my life.

Somehow, I managed to persuade the owner that I could control BBB. As he began to relent, however, I glanced past him to the pool table where all of the fun had started. I had not realized it, but BBB had snuck away from the fray, and was back at the table. Giggling yet methodic, he lined the pool table's railing with empty beer bottles from around the bar. My mouth-agape gaze finally cued the owner to turn around, and after seeing BBB’s work, he glared back at me with anger. I’m not sure he even needed to say the words “get out” for us to know that our visit to his bar had ended.

We walked down the street to a smaller, less-populated bar. We got ourselves beers, and things were going swimmingly…for about five minutes. Chief had reached his rambunctious stage of heavy drinking—known amongst our circle of friends as “Chief Drunk”—and decided that some of the random people near him were in need of some playful shoves. The bartender, seeing a crew made up mostly of large gentlemen (Butters, at about 6’0” 230lbs was the smallest male in our group), decided to nip things in the proverbial bud. My drunk had finally caught up with me, so Esq took over all negotiation duties. The bartender made Esq see the wisdom in our leaving; but, law student that he was, my friend decided to reach a compromise. Behind the bar was a large bell (I’m not sure why it was there; maybe it’s just a Virginia thing?), and Esq said he needed to ring it in exchange for us cutting our stay short. The bartender conceded, and the bar was quickly filled with the piercing clanging of Esq’s parting gift. Finished with the bell, and grinning from ear to ear, he turned to the rest of us and said, “Okay, let’s go!”

Partying at Paddock

I need to find myself a job that allows me to hit the bar on weeknights. Going from Saturday to Friday with a BAC of less than .5 is just excruciating. They say, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”; I say, “Abstinence makes the liver grow overconfident.”

It’s story-time again. Here’s another quick one from the 2003 Ocean City Trip:

On the fifth night of the vacation, ten of us saddled up and headed to a nightclub called “Paddock,” which is part of a larger complex called “The Party Block.” I’ve had dreams similar to the scene we walked into: It was dark, with loud music pumping over the speakers; all of the waitresses and bartenders were hot and dressed in black lingerie; there may have been a fog machine making it hazy—but, in all honesty, the fog could have just been in my alcohol-addled mind by that point in the week. One tall, brunette waitress walked up to us with a tray of colored liquids and said, “Shots are $4 each; bodyshots are $7.” My buddy, “Uncle Paulie,” and I walked up to the bar. It was $3.75 for a beer, but $5 for a mixed drink. Call me a mathematician, but… As we were having our Jack & Cokes mixed, I pointed out one bartender who was rather unique. She seemed to be of rubenesque proportions, yet the bra, panty, garter, and thigh-high arrangement she had on was still working for her.

U.P.: “That’s the hottest fat chick I’ve ever seen!”
Me: “Yeah, if she wasn’t half-naked she’d be TERRIBLE.”

We took over a section of the dancefloor with our intoxicated movements. At one point, U.P. spotted a hot blonde in the crowd. He tried to dance with her, but she quickly shot him down. She and her chubby friend danced away laughing, and went up onto the stage, which was being used as an extension of the dancefloor. Dupa and "BlahBlahBlah" (BBB) decided to avenge their friend’s humiliation. They went up to the stage, and approached the two girls. Standard logic would lead one to say, “Here are two young ladies, and here are two young men. They will pair up, each young man accompanying a young lady in a friendly dance.” There’s nothing “standard” about the drunken machinations of my friends, though. Dupa got behind Chubby Friend, and BBB jumped between her and Hot Blonde—facing Chubby Friend. He then boxed out Hot Blonde, so that suddenly Chubby Friend was alone on a sweaty island, being double-teamed by the two guys who probably smelled like beer, gyros, and chicken wings. The look of “What the f…” on Hot Blonde’s face was priceless.

We partied at the club all night, thanks largely to a bikini contest being covered by E!’s “Wild On”. After close, our entire crew was waiting at the bus stop when U.P. decided that we were a couple of blocks away from a 7-Eleven that we had visited a few nights earlier, and that he needed pizza sticks. Dupa, BBB, and I bravely joined him in the quest. We were 5 minutes down the street before we realized that, in actuality, we were about 21 blocks away from where U.P. thought we were. In the span of about the next 10 seconds, five things happened: (1) we managed to stop U.P., who was willing to walk to Georgia if he had to; (2) collectively, we decided to get on a bus and go home; (3) we noticed that the next stop was two city blocks away; (4) we began walking towards said stop; and (5) we turned to look back up the street, just as a bus blew past us towards the stop. “Motherf…”

We took off running for the bus stop, each of us a very large individual who had been drinking for the last 15 hours. Luckily there was a crowd of people waiting at the bus stop, and the bus was stationary while we caught up to it. When we got near the stop, it was U.P. in the lead, followed closely by me. BBB was a little further behind, with Dupa trailing. Near the back of the bus, however, BBB tripped. An object of his size, put into a high rate of speed, carries a lot of momentum (thank you, 12th grade physics). That momentum caused him to roll his ankle and briefly fly forward through the air; but, he tucked into a roll as he hit the ground. He came out of the roll near the rear doors of the bus, where a girl was exiting. Still in motion, he rose to his feet, grabbed her by the arm, and yanked her off the bus steps. This gave him leverage, and propelled him up the bus steps and right into a seat. When U.P. walked up the front steps and onto the bus, he stopped in his tracks, astonished to see BBB sitting in a seat up ahead of him, cold chillin’.

Go hard or go home, that’s what I always say.

The Tequila Willie’s Shootout

Things have been a bit boring around here lately. Only one post in the past two weeks, and that was just me musing on all of the unimpressively impressive ways I’ve voyaged into tawdry, unfulfilling, often hedonistic “relationships” that have added no meaningful value to my life—aside from some juvenile locker room bragging rights.

*leaves to go read his last post again…giggles*

“Ohhh…me.”

So aside from that poetry, things at On the Rocks have been sparse. TJ has been AWOL down in Tampa [not entirely true: he’s got some stories from the last couple of weeks, but they’re not exactly fodder for the page]. And, due to financial responsibilities, I’ve restricted my—to quote my dear old mum’s comment yesterday—“carousing”. As a result, all around the blogosphere there are emoticon smileys shedding pixilated tears into half-empty beer mug jpegs.

Or, you know…people have just read something else.

To ease your pangs of longing, I’ll give you a quick story from several years ago.

On a Friday night in 2002, some friends and I were hanging out at Tequila Willie’s in the Strip District’s Boardwalk complex. The Boardwalk was a series of clubs located on the shore of the Allegheny River, which were connected by a boardwalk that featured outdoor bars and boat docks. At the time, it was a thriving spot for nightlife in Pittsburgh. Willie’s was relatively new, and was always packed on weekends—especially on Fridays, when they had dollar drinks from 10 to 12. Ah, the dollar drink special. Some people mourn the passing of the $1.20 gallon of gas; I mourn YOU.

We arrived at around 10 p.m. after sufficient pregaming at my boy BlahBlahBlah’s Mt. Washington home. We sat down at the bar and started ordering cups of booze (rum & Coke for my boy, bourbon & Coke for me) two at a time. Never one to waste an opportunity to challenge someone at the game of “Drink,” BBB started taunting me for being behind by a cup.

Me: *chugs* “Oh yeah? F**k you! Bartender! Two more!”
BBB: *snickers, finishes his drink* “Me too!”
Me, in my head: “Wait…”

I squeezed down my 10th as he polished off number 11, and declared a cease-fire. “Okay, time for beer.” It was, after all, almost midnight; the special would be ending soon. And, as all established drinkers know, if you spend most of your evening throwing back hard liquor, you have to soften the blow with beer at the end of the night. You all know the rhyme: “Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear; beer before liquor, never been sicker.” BBB, for certain, was well aware of this time-tested proverb. But instead of agreeing with me, he looked at his watch, pulled out a fiver, and said, “Two more each!” I wanted to choke him, but I saw three or four of him in front of me, and I felt outnumbered. Two more bourbon & Cokes (which, after a couple of hours of tipping the bartender, were only “Coke” in name and not in spirit) were put away, along with my hopes of the night ending well.

Our friend Mere, who was the DD that night, later told us that at around 1 a.m., BBB, our friend Billy, and I were standing side-by-side-by-side at the upper-level railing, looking out onto the dance floor. BBB’s eyes were closed, my head was in my hands, and Billy—who was wearing a cast on his leg and walking with crutches—stood in place, doing all of his dancing with his upper body, arms gleefully shooting up to the sky. I don’t remember that, but I do remember this: my digestive system was angry at me, and was about to take its revenge for bourbon & Cokes 11 and 12. I walked, ever more hurriedly, towards the bathroom. About halfway there, I covered my mouth, to little benefit. Vomit sprayed out from between my fingers as I broke into a full-on run towards the men’s room. I reached a stall and finished the job, and then washed up in the sink while the bathroom attendant chuckled (like he didn’t see it every night?). As I walked back out into the club, avoiding eye contact with anyone nearby who may have been caught in my drive-by, I fully expected to be greeted by bouncers looking to remove me. It turns out, however, that they were busy.

When I got back to where my friends had been, only Mere remained. Before I could ask, she said, “Come on—[BBB] just got kicked out.” While I was gone, he had meandered off into the crowd in search of a beer, and gotten into a shoving match with a 5’5” d bag. After being separated by bouncers, the guy tossed something (by some accounts a shoe) at BBB, who then tried to go after him. Security removed him—though, at 6’4” 260, they didn’t do it easily—and Mere was collecting the rest of us to leave. We got to her car and, in an attempt to pinpoint his location in a very large parking lot, I called BBB.

Me: “Where are you right now?”
BBB: “I don’t know…I’m by a big f***in light!”

During the ten minute drive to his house, Mere twice had to pull over so that BBB could lean out of the door and throw up. The next morning, I awoke in the guestroom to him shaking me as he stood next to the bed. Startled, I responded, “What??”

“Hey,” he said with a big, clueless grin. “So what happened last night?”

Some of This + Some of That = Sum of Zero

It’s Monday afternoon, and I just took two aspirin to help quiet my hangover. This just feels…wrong.

So I was drunk on a Sunday afternoon, and it’s all Carson Palmer’s fault. His inability to throw the football to players in Bengal uniforms helped lead to a blistering defeat at the hands of BlahBlahBlah in fantasy football. And my subsequent need to erase all memory of Troy Polamalu posing like a Vegas showgirl while flying across the goal line led me to assault my new bottle of 1792. Maybe I was wrong for doing it, but let’s be real: Look at it in that picture. You can’t tell me that sexy bitch wasn’t asking for it.

Nevertheless, I awoke drooling on my couch at 12:30 a.m., instantly knowing I was going to regret everything the next morning. And when my alarm blared at me at 7 a.m., I did. What makes it all the stranger is that I didn’t drink myself Palin on either Friday or Saturday. And Friday was…eventful.

It started with the annual Christmas party thrown by my mother’s former coworkers. Once again I was her DD, and this time the venue was the Lexus Club inside the Consol Energy Center. When we reached the doors of the club, my mother—who hadn’t even had a hint of alcohol to that point—clarified to one of the CEC hostesses working the party, “I’m not a cougar; this is my son.” (For the record: No, the girl hadn’t asked.) I polished off Michelob Amber Bock draughts and an after-dinner glass of Glenlivet while listening to my mom’s friends bitch about their boss. Throughout the party I was receiving text messages from TJ and Jay Swag about how much they were drinking (I believe they started with personal pitchers of mixed drinks at 1311 Tavern). So after I finally dropped off my mother—who was feeling no pain—at her place, I went home, changed, and headed down to the South Side to catch up.

As I approached Rumshakers I found Swag; or, rather, I found a super drunk interpretation of Swag. With a fuzzy red beard (that, we later realized, makes him look like Treebeard from Lord of the Rings) and speaking 10 decibels too high on the phone while slumped in a doorway on Carson St., he was just a little brazen hubris away from being in Swag Montana mode. He was also the only member of the crew still in the South Side, as TJ had gone home and Mitch Canada had left for a house party in McKees Rocks. As I talked to Canada on the phone to get directions to the party, Swag stumbled off to another doorway, where he found a dark corner and unburdened his bladder. I chuckled as I watched a guy and a few girls walk past and one of the girls, curious about the source, began to follow the stream trickling from out of the doorway. Her shriek and fast retreat from the doorway was priceless.

After some time spent driving around the West End and McKees Rocks while Canada and others tried to give us directions, Swag and I finally arrived at the party. The first two things I noticed upon entering the house: (1.) It was a Christmas sweater party; (2.) there was a little person in a Christmas sweater on the couch. There weren’t very many people in attendance, but there was plenty of cold beer, so I was more than happy to work with it. And I was glad I had when Canada said, “You know, that midget’s my cousin. Or so I’ve been told.” And I was even more glad when a Backstreet Boys song came on the stereo and she and several others started a dance party in the living room.

When Canada introduced me to a girl of plus-sized proportions and she immediately looked at me as though I was a 6’6” 5 Guys double burger, though, I knew getting drunk was not a course of action that would end with me being in any way proud of myself. A little later, as I stood talking to one of Canada’s boys, I overheard him say to Double Burger, “I’d love for you to see my place!” The look on his face when he turned around and saw our grins proved that he clearly didn’t expect anyone else to be listening.

Alcohol is evil. Even on a Monday afternoon. I think I’ll buy some Gatorade on the way home from work.

And another bottle of 1792.

The Dolphin Choking

I have wanted to write this story for…well, for about 6 years now. And the blog has only been around for about 20 months, so that should tell you something. It’s a Dupa classic, and considering how insane some of his more mundane exploits are, that should tell you something too.

Really, the only thing that has been keeping it under wraps thus far was my “No Snitching” clause. At the time of the story Dupa was over a year into what would eventually be a six year relationship. We were part of an epic group vacation in Ocean City, MD, and his beloved girlfriend was not with us…

…I think you see where this is going.

The relationship finally wheezed its last raspy breath last year. But, out of respect for the dead, I was still determined not to air my boy’s dirty laundry. Then, back in June, I was writing the story of MoFo’s wedding, and asked Dupa what level of discretion should be used when telling his piece of the action (wait, did I just pun?...sorry, happens without me even trying sometimes). “After all,” I reminded him, “that took place while you were still with [her].” His response was a measured and resolute “fuck her.” Very well then…

I’ve told a few of the tales from that beach trip in past blog posts. Those eight days in August 2003 were a smorgasbord of booze, quotes, and hilarity. In addition to Dupa’s status as a taken man, BlahBlahBlah (BBB) found himself in a relatively new relationship with the woman who would eventually become his wife (“Mrs. BBB”). Although she had not come along with us at the trip’s outset, Mrs. BBB and four or five of her friends later decided to drive down and join us for the last few days of the vacation.

On the next to last night, our crew split into two groups. BBB, his girlfriend, her friends, and a couple of others went out to dinner at a buffet. Dupa, seven of our friends, and I went to Scandals, where I soon made the first of many blunders with Juli. After a couple of hours of $1 glasses of Hulk, our faction caught the bus from Scandals over to Club 24 to meet up with BBB’s group. While the Hulk had ruined my ability to talk, it’d had quite the opposite effect on Dupa. On the back of the crowded bus, with no warning, he began channeling his ancestors by speaking (loudly) in an exaggerated Eastern European accent. He had turned into Borat, long before there even was a Borat. While our friends and I laughed, and numerous confused strangers watched, Dupa began rattling off praise and amazement over the modern wonderments of America, such as the “motorized wagon” on which we sat.

In joining the party already in progress at Club 24, we found most of BBB’s squad stationed at a large table just off of the dance floor. Exploring the premises, Dupa and I found ourselves a special shot bar, featuring tubes of blue and red elixirs that looked liked something from “The Matrix”. It only took a few words of Polish-accented suggestion for me to join my friend in downing a tube of each color. By that point in the trip, I’d drank so much that I had lost all concern for my own personal well-being; putting away new and untested alcohols and concoctions was merely standard operating procedure.

On our way back to our friends' table, we happened upon our boy, “Erin Go Bragh” (EGB), dancing with one of Mrs. BBB’s friends (“Wagon”, because of the one she was draggin’). Dupa, charmed by Wagon’s physical talents, decided to undercut EGB. Tapping him on the shoulder, he said, “BBB wants you.” EGB obligingly went over to the table to see what was up; Dupa then grabbed Wagon and started freaking her. There’s simply no honor amongst thieves.

I went to the bar for a drink, and soon found myself inches away from a “Wild On!” segment being filmed for E!. After watching a random vacationing slore do a shot from a bottle nozzle stuck through the dickhole of the bartender’s boxer briefs—all for the cameras, I stopped past the dance floor again to check on my compatriot. There I found him with his tongue in Wagon’s mouth, and his hand down the back of her pants. Chuckling, I returned to the table where everyone else was.

Me: “Dupa and Wagon are making out on the dance floor.”
Mrs. BBB: *surprised, and genuinely bummed out* “She was supposed to be for EGB!”

I sat down and drank with the rest of the gang. About 10 minutes after I’d left them on the dance floor, Dupa and Wagon appeared back at the table. Sitting down next to me and leaning over to my ear, he said, “D.E.F.I. pleaaassse tell me you have a condom! Please, please, please, PLEASE tell me you have one!” When I produced one from my pocket and deftly slid it to him under the table, he thanked me more appreciatively than a drowning man whose been thrown a life preserver. When everyone left Club 24 at close, I managed to get separated. And when I finally returned home after an adventure of my own, I was none-too-surprised to find that Dupa hadn’t been seen since.

An hour or so later, a couple of guys returned to the condo with a pizza, and the two or three of us who were sitting around talking hungrily joined them in the feast. As we were doing so, however, the door flung open, and in charged a visibly-agitated Dupa. Throwing the unopened Lifestyles down on the kitchen counter, he mumbled in disgust, “Here’s your fucking condom.”

All of us were shocked, and instantly began pressing him for details. He responded, “I don’t want to talk about it right now” and walked off to his bedroom. A minute or two later he returned, grabbed a slice of pizza, devoured it, and quickly calmed down (marinara and mozzarella can be remarkably soothing). He then, at last, revealed to us the events that took place after he left Club 24:

Eager to find some alone time, he and Wagon headed back to her hotel room. Unfortunately, she was sharing it with married friends of hers, who either didn’t know that they were cockblocking, or maybe just didn’t care (I know the couple in question; and, really, either option would be believable). Wagon suggested to Dupa that they go back to his place, but he knew all of us were there and…well, that was an obvious “no.” They decided, then, to take a walk on the beach.

[Note: After being a part of two group vacations in Ocean City, and hearing countless stories from other trips, I find it simply amazing that the city is so accommodating to all of the afterhours beach sex that goes on every summer night. Stroll down the boardwalk at about 4 a.m. with some night vision goggles, and you’ll probably need both hands to count how many hookups you spot. They have large machines which come through and clean the sand every night, and guessing how many used condoms it picks up everyday has to be something like the fundraisers where you guess how many jellybeans are in a fishbowl. Of course, I’ve never engaged in this tawdry vacation ritual myself, so…maybe I’m just hating a little. But I digress…]

When they got to the beach, they soon returned to the progress that they had been making at the club. Finding a spot of uninhabited (but not in any way hidden to people less than 100 feet away) sand, they laid down and got closer to the end game. And then…
Wagon: “We…can’t. I’m on my period.”
Dupa: “Hey, I don’t care. We’re here on the beach. Let’s just do it.”
Wagon: “Okay.” *reaches into her shorts and pulls out a large maxi pad, and sails it Frisbee-style into the ocean*

From reading my tales about Dupa’s craziness, you have probably surmised just how hard it is to floor him. You pretty much either have to be a pair of 40 year old swingers or…toss your used maxi pad into the ocean.

Giving her a quick “I can’t do this,” he zipped up, walked a confused Wagon back to her hotel, and then bolted without so much as a goodnight kiss. As we laughed hysterically at this news, someone asked him to confirm just where the pad had landed.

Dupa: “In the ocean! Some dolphin’s probably choking on it!”
Me: “She’s killed Flipper!”

Sweet Dreams are Made of These

Sleep, in the immortal words of Nasir Jones, is the cousin of death. But it’s the BFF of drinking. Spend enough time with booze in your hand, and soon you’ll have your head on a pillow. Or a floor. Or a dog.

As you probably can imagine, my crew of grizzled drinking veterans have had plenty of falling-down-drunk moments. And while in sports—and in life in general—it’s not about whether or not you fall down, but how fast you get back up, in boozing the falling down itself is often the truest testament to a performance.

• In the fall of 2001, BlahBlahBlah and I traveled to Thiel College for their homecoming celebrations. We spent a wild day boozing in a hangar, riding in back of a U-Haul truck with 20 other drunken revelers, defeating all challengers at beer pong while each opposing team had half the student body rowdily cheering behind it, doing 90 mph down country roads in Sales Machine’s Jeep Cherokee, irritating rednecks in Wal-Mart, and just being us, in general. We crashed at Sales’ off-campus apartment, and by about 4 am only BBB, Sales’ Rottweiler, a friend of Sales’ girlfriend, and I were still awake. As we sat in the living room talking, BBB abruptly got up from his chair and announced, “Fuck this—I’m out!” Saying that, he dove to the floor immediately next to the dog, threw an arm over the poor pooch, and cuddled up for the night.

• BBB, however, is not the only canine Casanova amongst our ranks. In 2004, Rocky threw a raucous pool party at his parents’ house while they were out of town. The next morning I woke up to a reoccurring whimper. As I came to, I gathered information piece-by-piece. “I’m on a couch. I’m facing the back of the couch. Oh yeah, I’m at Rocky’s. In the living room. That whimper is somewhere behind me. I think it’s the dog.” Putting all of this together, I surmised that the family’s dog, Nine [don’t ask me about the name; she was their dog, not mine], needed to be let out to go to the bathroom. I rolled over to take care of it—or, hopefully, to find someone else around who could do it instead—and found the dog only about three feet away from me. Laying on the sofa bed. With Dupa’s arm slumped over her. The man was spooning the dog. And the dog was whimpering because she couldn’t make it stop.

• One morning last year, I woke up and walked to my bathroom. When I came out to head back to bed, I glanced into my living room. There on my couch laid Dupa, in nothing but a pair of tighty-whities; lying on his side with one leg up over the back of the sofa, he looked as though he had fallen asleep mid-pubescent-couch-grinding-thrust. I returned to my room and got my camera phone to snap a picture. The Ex, half-awake, asked what I was doing. “You’ll see in a second,” I said, as I giddily tip-toed back out to the living room.

• My living room has been the scene of other great moments in pass out history. Exhibit B: After we returned from a night at the Shadyside bars with a pizza in 2008, LRG promptly passed out while sitting on one half of my loveseat, his head rolled backwards and his mouth wide open. Next to him, occupying the other half of the loveseat, sat the open box with half of a pizza still inside. From the positioning of his arm, it looked as though LRG had passed out while reaching for another slice.

Exhibit C (as shown below right): After a night of boozing later that year, Tony and I went back to my place to call it a night. After going to my room to throw on sweats and grab him some pillows, I returned to the living room to find Tony dead asleep, facedown in the same loveseat that had claimed LRG. For his part, however, Tony did not appear to have gone down without a fight; it looked as though he had dove over the arm of the couch, face-planted the far cushion, and been knocked out cold upon impact—an impact that had folded his right leg behind him at the knee, adding to the comedy of the scene.

• Esq has long had a terrible track record of being the first to fall asleep, to which the end of his 4th of July two years ago attests. Often he has been unable to even make it back to the safe haven of a house, apartment, hotel room, etc. before succumbing to the Sand Man. As a result, I have numerous pictures of him passing out at a variety of bars and eateries across the greater Pittsburgh area. One night, while he, Tony, and I ate at Tom’s Diner, I looked up from my 3 a.m. meal to find him sound asleep across the table. I took out my phone and snapped a picture, and then sent it to Tank with the accompanying text, “Have you ever seen a large man in a pink shirt sleeping at Tom’s Diner?”

Tank responded, “Yes, I have,” and included a picture that he’d taken months prior. In the photo sat Esq—wearing a completely different pink dress shirt—sleeping in a booth at Tom’s.

• On the morning of the Pirates’ Home Opener in 2003, Swing Low began the day by opening a fifth of Beam with Beard. An hour later the bottle was dry. Then they went tailgating.

Early that evening, Swing opened his eyes to a bright light. It was a female police officer’s flashlight. Scanning his surroundings, Swing found himself in a random front yard in Beechview, a mile or so from home. He looked up at the officer and said, “I’m that guy, aren’t I?” When she offered him a ride back to his place, a still-drunk Swing countered, “Oooh no—I know what that means!” He then scrambled to his feet and began to run away; but, given his state, his running was more of a lumbering stumble in slow motion (I often imagine it to look something like Bigfoot running underwater). The policewoman followed behind him in her squad car until he got home, to be sure he didn’t endanger himself or anyone else during his “getaway.” To this day, he’s the only one of my friends who can claim to have gotten a police escort home from a day of drinking.

• In fairness to my friends, I’ll share one of my own pass out violations. I occasionally have the bad habit of roaming during my drunken slumber. Sometimes I get confused when returning from a journey to the bathroom while half asleep, and other times my subconscious decides that I need a change of scenery. And sometimes I haven’t the slightest clue what leads to it.

On one such occasion in 2002, several of us had been out on the town running amok. At night’s end we returned to the Mount Washington house where BBB lived with two female friends of his from high school. Tony, Irish lothario that he is, had been invited by one of the roommates (“Triple A”) to sleep in her bed. I had chosen my favorite resting place, the couch in a sun room adjacent to Triple A’s room. I loved that room, as it looked out on downtown Pittsburgh, which was directly across the river (this also made it a preferred hook-up room amongst our friends, even a few who didn’t live in the house; sadly, I never took advantage of it myself). Many a Saturday and Sunday morning found me waking up in there. Early the next morning, however, I did not awake in my familiar nook. When I opened my eyes, I was laying on the edge of a bed, facing a wall. Triple A’s wall. I rolled over and looked behind me. There was Tony with his back to me, and on the other side of him Triple A. The next quick check was down my torso, to make sure I was still clothed. I was. Thank god. I gingerly got out of that bed of intrigue as fast as I could, and returned to my sun room with a head full of questions that still haven’t been completely answered.

Here’s to everyone finding sweet dreams this weekend, whenever—and wherever—they may come. Salud.

Dan Harmon: A Functional On the Rocks-ic

NBC's Community has fast become one of my favorite shows on television. Last year I wrote a post here featuring a YouTube clip of “The Breakfast Club” homage that two of the main characters performed while shitfaced on vodka [unfortunately that particular clip was pulled from YouTube due to a copyright complaint by NBC; NBC hasn’t made the clip available via their website, though, which leaves me high and (ironically) dry]. Much like its brilliance, it appears that the sitcom's taste for drinking is also inherited from its creator and executive producer, Dan Harmon. In the second installment of a large, four-part examination of Community’s second season by A.V. Club, Harmon reveals his own fondness of alcoholic pursuits. Discussion of the season’s 10th episode, “Mixology Certification”, begins with the following exchange.

AVC: This one ended up being surprisingly controversial. For a lot of our commenters, it wasn’t funny enough and was too depressing.

DH: And [they said] it felt like an anti-drinking message somehow in there. There’s no bigger drunk than me. I’m drinking a glass of vodka while I talk to you about this. I’m not Trey Parker. I don’t wanna just assume that the way I live my life and the things that I believe need to be somehow imparted to people. That’s easier with Trey because he’s a libertarian, and his views are more neutral. I can’t get away with that, because my views are left of Chomsky, and my habits are left of Belushi. I can’t just suggest that America get into what I’m into. So in an episode about everybody getting shit-faced, I was the one going, “Let’s not glamorize it. Let’s make sure that if you don’t drink, you walk away from the episode not thinking maybe you’re missing something.” [Laughs.] But at the same time, if you do, you’re going, “Finally, an episode for me.”

That, my friends, is what you call a breath of fresh air. I’d have to believe, if I were ever in such a position of success as a writer and producer and giving a lengthy and very involved interview, that I, too, would have a glass of the good stuff in my hand as I talked with the interviewer.

There is often a misperception floated in our society: If you’re a drinker, you’re a slacker. You’re a loser; an unproductive lump of flesh that never creates, only uses and destroys. This misguided deconstruction is one of my biggest pet peeves. And, as you might expect, I’ve had to deal with it on a personal level a time or two (see my disclaimer at the end of this Jan. 2010 write). Some people don't want to accept that there is such a thing as the happy medium in life. Everything they see must fall into either one extreme or the other. And, more often than not, they paint any person, place, and thing that doesn’t land on their side of the fence in ugly, undesirable tones. It’s a xenophobic and counterintuitive practice.

The fact of the matter is, many of the people whose stories I bring you on this page are anything but losers. Esq is a brilliant young lawyer at one of the nation’s top firms. Dupa has, in a very short amount of time, shot up through the ranks at the very large corporation where he works to become one of its youngest senior managers ever. BlahBlahBlah has thrived for several years now as a financial advisor. I have friends who are local TV news personalities, employees of high-profile federal agencies, homemakers, federal law enforcement agents, and CEOs, all of whom have seen their anecdotes come to life at On the Rocks at one time or another. My prolific use of aliases is the respectful offspring of this fact. These are people with a whole lot to lose if the world was to learn that it was them who were passing out drunk on barstools or having one night stands with random women at weddings.

Harmon is just like them, and he’s just like me. He’s one of us. He occupies that world of the happy medium. A place where having drinks at the end of the day doesn’t qualify you as a degenerate alcoholic; where being successful doesn’t preclude you from having fun. He’s an On the Rocks spirit: Someone who works and plays hard.

How It All Shakes Out

“You know, when you get old, in life, things get taken from you. I mean, that's... that's... that's part of life. But, you only learn that...when you start losin' stuff.”

— Tony D’Amato, Any Given Sunday.


Getting old…blows. And that may be the best way I can put it. I could try to twist eloquent phrases and metaphors into a melodic expression of regret and fear, but…nah. Getting old blows.

I know for some, that statement sounds amusing. They would be the 20-something set, the people still experiencing the ten years I cherish most of the 34 I’ve lived. For them, “old” is a word thrown lazily at any person or thing unfortunate enough to have been born before them. There is no “old,” only whimsical musings on the far, far, far-off future.

For others, the statement sounds downright ludicrous. Not because they disagree with the core principle, mind you; but, instead, because it’s being said by someone who’s 34 years old. They would be the 40-something set, the people who look at me and wish they still had the years I’m spending. In ten years I’ll be them, looking upon the currently-20-something set, as they bitch about getting old.

Not to get too Freudian on you, but everyone wants what they can’t have. Especially if it’s something they once had, but can’t have now. “Tis better to have loved and lost…” Bullshit. Ignorance is bliss. If you don’t know the feeling of having it, you won’t miss the feeling of knowing it.

When I tell you, now, that this post is about the closing of a bar, I’d be shocked if eye-rolling didn’t follow. Though I admit there are easy jokes to be found in me, of all people, speaking in nostalgic tones about a dirty little piece of real estate with cheap booze and cracked-pleather bar stools, understand that there’s reason for my passion. And it extends beyond $1 draughts.

Rumshakers became a part of my life more or less the instant it opened its doors in 2003. To be fair, the cheap beer and $2 shots were a big part of the initial draw. Those were the wild days, when Friday nights saw any number of us congregate at the huge Mt. Washington house where BlahBlahBlah (BBB) lived; we’d drink ourselves silly with beer pong and cards, and then hop into cabs down to the South Side to start our night in earnest. We were fresh out of college, earning our own (adequate) salaries, buying cars, paying taxes, and living aggressively. It was a love affair with the moment. So when a small new bar opened up on Carson Street, stocked with a pool table and $2 tall draughts of Miller Lite, it was inevitable that it would be added to our monthly rotation of watering holes.

It became one of our “go-to’s,” a place we could always count on to treat us well, no matter the day or time. But, at some point in the years that followed, our migration patterns shifted, and Rumshakers fell from our regular itinerary. Hey, life changes. BBB moved out of the place on Mt. Washington and went back out to the far suburbs, which ended our weekly parties. A few friends got married. I moved to Shadyside, and was suddenly within walking distance of my nightlife needs. New bars and clubs opened, some in other areas of the city. The world is an Etch-a-Sketch—nothing’s permanent.

Then, in 2009, Jay Swag became a fixture in our crew. And he brought Rumshakers along with him.

Swag is nothing if not loyal to those who he feels have earned such endearment, and Rumshakers has earned it. If you think my reflective reverence for it is funny, that’s only because Swag doesn’t write. To me, the closing of Rumshakers is saying goodbye to a friend; to him, it’s saying goodbye to a brother. During a recent visit, Swag and his roommate Canada asked the owner if they could have some kind of keepsake, something to honor a time and place in their lives that they knew they’d always cherish. There are now two beat up old barstools sitting in their living room.

Since ’09, a lot of the days and nights of Swag, Canada, and I—and, really, of everyone in our circle of friends—have involved drinks at 1224 East Carson St. Search this page for “Rumshakers” (or just click on this link), and you’ll find tale after tale. St. Patrick’s Days, birthdays, bar crawls. Dupa so drunk, he couldn’t talk. The whole shebangabang.

When I gashed open my leg this summer, it was just down the block from Rumshakers. And Jay, a bartender there, is the one who drove me to the ER. There’s a story from there that I’ve never written, purely for legal purposes. There’s one that involved a manhunt, that the perpetrator insisted I write.

I got stalked by The Ex there. While we were together, I would’ve had to have carried her over my shoulder—kicking and screaming in Spanish—to get her to go into Rumshakers. But a year and a half after the relationship ended, I got an email from her one Monday telling me she’d seen me there the previous Saturday. I didn’t sleep so well the next few weeks.

Rumshakers was where I met the man who would eventually marry the girl responsible for the deepest crush I’ve ever known (and even though they’d only just started dating, even then I kind of knew they’d end up together; which makes that memory a little more painful than most).

I still remember games of 8-ball at Rumshakers, especially those with BBB as my teammate. There were bar tabs I don’t remember closing, women I don’t remember meeting, conversations I don’t remember regretting. Photos of friends, photos of hilarity, and photos of jubilation. Moments of dancing, moments of laughter, moments of…youth.

We all get old, we all lose the things that we hold dearest. Even the superficial things, like bars we hung out at, and the fleeting connections to people we drunkenly made out with. But those feelings, the atmospheres, the friends, and those times… We’ll hold on to them forever.

Is it silly to say goodbye to a bar? Probably. But sometimes, it’s more than just the bar that you're saying goodbye to.

Shots for Everyone

Only in Pittsburgh can you drink a Natty Light while riding in a limo. Well, I suppose you could do it in other cities, too; but it probably would be a lot more likely to be looked at as odd. In Pittsburgh, no one even thinks twice about it.

Saturday night was a study in contrasts. We pregamed in Squirrel Hill—a relatively progressive, white collar section of the city; but we were drinking Natural Light, which is as blue-collar a beer as there is. Everyone on hand celebrating my buddy Rocky’s birthday was above college age; but we played beer pong and chugged beer at a house party, which made me reminisce on my days at W&J. The main event was held in the South Side, which in recent years has seen an influx of trendier clubs and ultra lounges; but we were going to one of the last diehard “dive bars” found on Carson St., the White Eagle Inn.

Rocky, who is Mrs. T.C.’s cousin, managed to pack the small locale with friends and family. And, in keeping with the contrasts, his family being present in no way meant that the boozing was curtailed. I had already done about five rounds of shots—most of those being Rocket Fuel, which the White Eagle sells by the pitcher—when Rocky’s mother and father arrived. The next two pitchers of Rocket Fuel shots were paid for and doled out by his mother. The woman’s a saint.

I kept a running tally of the rounds of shots saved in a note on my phone; it read “9” when I glanced at it Sunday morning. But I suspect that I neglected to update the count near the end of the night, being tipsy as I was; and I have a vague recollection of downing a shot and thinking, “Well helloooo double digits.”

Sunday…hurt.

My sparse blogging as of late isn’t due to a lack of consumption. Every weekend in my social calendar from early February through the end of April is dotted with some type of engagement. Here are some notes and quickies from the last few weeks:

• At K.C.’s birthday party, Abbie’s mom sold Girlfriend and me each a $2 raffle ticket. The grand prize of the St. Patrick's Day drawing? A basket of booze. Guess whose fingers haven’t uncrossed since.

• Chappy has made a triumphant return to the game after about four months as a “healthy scratch.” A special party was held in his honor at Carson City Saloon a couple of weeks ago, and the alcohol flowed like the Mississippi in spring [I’ll dedicate a special blog to that night at a later time]. He took the early “L” that night, but he made an appearance at the White Eagle for Rocky’s party and seemed to have his drinking sea legs solidly underneath him once again.

• Girlfriend was away on a previously-planned trip to New York City for Valentine’s Day weekend, so I spent it hanging with the fellas (TJ already recounted the events of 2/13). V Day itself saw a fist fight break out in front of us at Shady Grove (a rarity amongst a largely preppy, young professional crowd); a mile-and-a-half hike to Cricket Lounge (a local strip club), where Hollywood met up with us—and apparently knows the entire staff, from dancers to bartenders; and an end-of-the-night gorging at Village Pizza. Ahh, the bachelor’s lifestyle.

• While playing beer pong at the pregame party this past Saturday, my friend “JW” decided to add one cup to the front of each team’s standard six cup triangle. “So this is the uncircumcised version,” I observed.

• On 2/21 BlahBlahBlah had a birthday party for his wife at Sing Sing, a local piano bar. While I typically loathe piano bars, it was good to see BBB and others who were in attendance. His wife gave birth to a bouncing baby boy a couple of days before Christmas, so this was his first night out on the town in quite some time. And it ended in classic BBB fashion: he got too drunk, got upset when his wife took the car keys off him, and stormed off through the crowd—and through one tough guy who decided to mouth off in response. This, of course, then led to me drive blocking BBB backwards towards the front doors to prevent him from turning the guy’s face into a freestanding speed bag.

This Saturday will feature the annual St. Patty’s Day festivities, beginning at Shannon’s around 9 a.m. I think the headache I have right now is a sign that my body has decided to get next Sunday's hangover started early, just to make sure it matches the ungodly amount of Jameson, Guinness, and green beer I’ll be drinking.

Salud.

Drunks Say the Darndest Things 2

If you think there is a limit to the amount of idiotic, ballsy, or plain-outrageous things my friends, family, and I will say when marinated in alcohol, let me reassure you: there isn’t. Last year’s posting on this subject was one of my favorites of the year, and not long after it was published I began remembering additional stories and fantastic lines that I had not included. Not to mention the new ones that we were busy living on an almost weekly basis. Many of those have been part of much larger stories, and therefore have already been told (a case of mistaken identity by “The Ex”—nee “Girlfriend”, Dupa’s testimonial to his lovemaking abilities, T.C.’s diffusion of a tense elevator ride, LRG’s dating arithmetic, etc.). But there still remain others that have been executed just as flawlessly, but have remained amongst our crew…until now.

• The day after Thanksgiving, my friend Steph invited me to a party at her house in Mt. Washington. When I arrived, though, the house was seemingly empty. I knocked on the door, but to no avail. I called her up to politely ask, “WTF?”
  
  Steph: *noticeably tipsy* “I’m at Carson City Saloon. I came down here this afternoon with some of my friends to watch the early [college football] games. We’re leaving here in like ten minutes.”
  Me: “Okay, but isn’t anyone at your place?”
  Steph: “Bill (my boy, who is also her roommate) should be there. Did you knock on the door?”
  Me: “Yeah. No answer.”
  Steph: “Well kick that fucker down!”
  
  
• When I was about ten or so, my dad’s side of the family held a 75th birthday party for my grandfather. As we all sat around a table in the private room of a nice Baltimore restaurant, some of my aunts and uncles discussed the different milestone birthdays while enjoying their pre-dinner cocktails.
  
  Someone: “Well 25th is silver, and 50th is gold. What’s 75th?”
  Uncle Red: “Marble!”
  
  
• In May 2004, Tony celebrated his birthday with a raucous cookout at the house he lived in with his boy, K-man. Late in the night—after a keg and two bottles of Jager had been polished off—we were all pretty hammered, but the birthday boy was easily the drunkest. Chief showed up with Mudd, who none of us had met before. And Mudd, who is black, was wearing a cowboy hat.
  
  Tony: “Chief—you brought me a black cowboy for my birthday!”
  
  
• One fall night in 2001, BlahBlahBlah and I were out in Shadyside with our friend, “Em”, and two of her girlfriends, “Pin-up” and “Badonk”. All three of the girls lived in The ‘Side; Em had an apartment on Walnut St., and Pin-up and Badonk lived in a large house a few blocks away with two other girls. After the bars closed we all went back to the girls’ house to continue drinking. Although BBB and I were supposed to stay at Em’s apartment that night, things were going swimmingly between Badonk and I, not to mention between BBB and Pin-up. So when Em decided to call it a night, expecting us to be rolling with her, she got two peace signs to the face. For whatever reason, though, neither of us hooked up; instead, our party of four ended up passing out in a girl-guy, girl-guy lineup in Pin-up’s bed (she had a queen-sized mattress, but quarters were still pretty cramped—if we had rolled over in our sleep, the poor lasses would’ve suffocated).
  
  Early in the morning, I felt the bed shake, and looked up to see BBB getting up and walking out of the room. I looked back down to find a sexy chick sleeping next to me in the same bed, and another one a BBB-sized space away from her. Still drunk, I shrugged it off and went back to sleep. An hour or so later, all of us were awaken by a blaring smoke alarm. Pin-up hopped up and ran out of the room to investigate; the rest of us got up, BBB and I plopping ourselves down on a couch in the middle of the bedroom. When Pin-up returned, she said that a candle had been left burning in the bathroom and the smoke from it had set off the alarm. “It was probably our roommate—she’s always lighting that fucking candle!”
  
  She left the room again and Badonk followed her. Alone for the moment, BBB started chuckling.
  
  Me: *whispering* “What?”
  BBB: *whispering* “I lit the candle!”
  Me: “Wha…Why’d you light the candle?”
  BBB: “I took a shit!”
  
  
• BBB’s confession wasn’t going to be the last great line of the morning, however. He and I walked back to Em’s place, giggling and still tipsy. When we rang the buzzer for her apartment, she came to the door and opened it, and looked up at us like a lost toddler.
  
  Em: *dejectedly* “Did you fuck my friends?!?”
  
  
• A couple of Christmases ago, several of us spent Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd) drinking at Shadyside Saloon. At the end of what was a blindingly-drunk night for Hollywood, the last four or five of us were drinking beers in my apartment. As he perused my liquor supply, he happened upon my bottle of Glenlivet Nadurra, a 16 year old scotch.
  
  Hollywood: “‘Glen-li-vay’. Nice.”
  Me: “Thanks, but it’s ‘Glen-liv-it’.”
  Hollywood: “No it’s not; it’s ‘Glen-li-vay’.”
  Me: “It’s ‘Glen-liv-it; it’s Scottish, not French!”
  
  
• On a Friday night last November, Tony and I were sitting at a table in Shady Grove, finishing our drinks and casually watching some of the night’s talent walk past. Then a passing petite blonde with a nice bottom got Tony to thinking.
  
  Tony: “If I was Vinnie Chase, I’d pull an average chick like that, and then I’d send someone out to buy a bucket of sausage gravy, and I’d eat it out of her ass.”
  
  
• As TD and Baby Joey’s 2008 Labor Day party wound down, I received a phone call from The Ex, who at the time was still a mysterious and little-known “Lady Friend”. I answered the phone and sat down on one of the couches in the living room while I talked. 1L, as I reported once before, was confined to the other living room couch by the effects of the day’s drinking. Mind you, she was wide awake and had been involved in the conversations going on between TD, Joey, Tony, and I; she just couldn’t keep herself upright while doing so. The Ex was out of town, but wanted to call to see how my day had gone. As I was involved in the phone conversation, I was absent to the group’s discussion, and was unaware as to where it had wandered off. But I was about to get a strong idea.
  
  As I talked with The Ex, I suddenly realized 1L’s slurry voice was projecting in my direction. “Hey!” I glanced over, and saw that she was leaning towards me, stretching to show me her cell phone; on the screen was a crisp, clear photo of a well-sculpted butt (which, I’d learn later, belonged to none other than 1L herself) in pink and bluelace panties. I tried to ignore her and focus on The Ex, but 1L was determined to show off her booty to me.
  
  1L: *louder* “Hey! …I bet that girl you're talking to doesn’t have an ass like this!”
  

The Hangovers

I was legitimately concerned. I had awakened after a night out with friends—a night in which I had slammed empty glass after empty glass on the bar—with no ill effects. Maybe I had a slight twinge in my head, at first. But that went away after a few hours on the couch. I should have been half-dead in a nauseous haze. My friends certainly were. But I was fine.

For a split second, I wondered if I was a superhero.

A high alcohol tolerance sounds awesome, until paranoia takes over and you start thinking about your uncle who died of cirrhosis. It’s incredible how removing something you loathe can send your world into chaotic unbalance. (This also applies to ex-girlfriends…)

Luckily for my sanity, my imperviousness to hangovers was only temporary. The wretched aching of mind, soul, and body soon returned, bringing even more torment with it the next time around. (…this also applies to ex-girlfriends).

The hangover is a strange animal. You’re (normally) guaranteed to come face-to-face with one the morning after your drunken fun, but you never quite know how sharp its claws will be. Or which of your vital organs it’ll bite first. The brain is its favorite prey, but we’ve all had stomachs and intestines ravaged by the beast. Regardless, you know pain and hatred of everything are the two constants that you can count on the morning after a good boozing session.

Some people like to brag about knowing of surefire hangover cures. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Those people are full of shit. There’s no easy way out—aside from drinking more booze. This past New Years, my hangover was remarkably downgraded. Typically, New Year’s Day is a 24 hour struggle to think a thought without falling over, crippled by a crushing weight of pain. This one, though, was a breeze. It took me a day or two to realize what I’d done differently. The answer? I’d started the first morning of the year by taking a shot of whiskey at Shannon’s. Those Irish…they have the instruction manual to the world that the rest of us have been longing for.

I’ve had, of course, a litany of hangover experiences. Although drinking more booze works best in the short run, it usually just f’s you in the long run (though I’m thinking of experimenting with this solitary shot of whiskey thing, pending a returned phone call from Shannon). The most common remedy I employ, of course, involves throwing lots of food at the beast, and hoping it’s distracted as I float away on a tide of Gatorade while wearing aspirin floaties.

As you might expect, quite a few of my best and worst hangover moments have been covered before. Like Sunday at Ohio University; or the day after my 29th birthday; or the flight home from Vegas in ’11; or the Wednesday of my Savannah trip in ’10; or…hell, spread out all of my On the Rocks tales and throw a dart, and you’ll probably hit a morning and/or afternoon when a hangover was using my skull like a blowup doll. Of the unpublished tales about my encounters with the spirits of spirits passed, here are some of my more noteworthy moments:

• One winter day, in early 2003, was a prime example of “let’s eat so much that our hangovers leave out of sheer disgust”. As per usual in those days, we’d spent Saturday night drinking our faces off in the ridiculous Mt. Washington house where my homie BlahBlahBlah lived. And, as per usual, we all awoke late Sunday morning in a state of, “What-the-everloving-fuck did I do to myself last night?!”

Besides me, only Affliction, LRG, our boy Michael T., and BBB were still in the building. Feeling the need to replace our bodies’ missing hydration

with grease, the four of us triaged in the living room—on the first floor of the house—beckoned to he with a bedroom (BBB) for leadership. Without moving from his bed—on the second floor of the house—BBB directed us to the stash of delivery menus he and his roommates kept in the kitchen.

We soon found a deal to our liking: two pizzas, one hoagie, 40 wings. We called in that order like a boss. Shortly after it had arrived, BBB made his one and only trip downstairs that day. He tore off the top half of a pizza box, shoved half a pizza, a quarter of a hoagie, and a share of wings onto it (in seemingly one swipe of his hairy arm), then sauntered back upstairs to his room. When the last of we downstairs-dwellers left the premises that afternoon, nothing but discarded pizza crusts, hoagie lettuce, and chicken bones were left on the kitchen table.

• That, of course, hadn’t been my first time going to battle with these gents against marauding hangover armies. In 2001, all of us (minus LRG) had been at Thiel College for homecoming weekend, crushing beer pong, winning bars, and cuddling dogs. The next day, before returning to civilization—well, something like civilization—in Pittsburgh, the four of us and Sales Machine stopped at a nearby Pizza Hut.

My assfucked-sideways state, and the avalanche of mozzarella, pepperoni, and tomato sauce that buried my cerebral cortex, have forever hindered my ability to remember any specifics regarding the financial or quantum metrics of our feeding frenzy. I do remember Sales having a hookup with the manager that resulted in us eating at a drastic discount, though. Aside from that, the only commentary I can offer: If you mention that event to any of the five of us now, the immediate response is, “Uggghhhhhhhhhhhh…”

• One of the more blissful moments of the 2003 Ocean City trip was the very first morning in town, when I realized that the hangovers had stopped at the Maryland border. When you drink all day, sleep for 4-5 hours, and then wake up and start drinking again, hangovers want no part of you. The problem, though, is if you keep that up for a week and then spend the entire car ride home without booze, you go through legitimate withdrawal. By the third hour of the drive you’re hallucinating and yelling racial slurs at the magical llamas dancing along the side of the highway while the Easter Bunny slaps you and demands that you tell him where you hid all of his PCP-filled eggs. You may have avoided a hangover for seven days, but withdrawal is its angry, sadistic, rapey older brother.

• In late-2001/early-2002, I was fresh out of college in a post-911 world, and thus still looking for a full-time job. This meant working temp jobs for a local college—manual labor/warehouse jobs, for the most part. In those days, Wednesday dollar-drink nights were a regular staple of my diet. If you’re reading this and thinking, “Manual labor on a hangover at 8 a.m.? That doesn’t sound like fun!” (a.) You’re right, but I was 22/23 and unconcerned with self-preservation; (b.) fuck you.

Thankfully, the office admin for the warehouse was a middle-aged woman named Sandy. And Sandy was a sweetheart. And Sandy treated me like her favorite nephew.

I walked into her office one particularly bad Thursday morning; she looked me over and said, “Go lay on the desk.” There was a spare desk in the far corner of the large office, tucked out of view from the office windows. I laid down on it and let the alcohol fumes coming off my skin lull me into a vegetative state. After 10 minutes Sandy warned, “Here comes the boss—get up!” I rolled off the desk and into its accompanying chair. The boss carried on past the office; Sandy gave me the “all clear”, and I returned to my prone state on top of the desk, where I rested for another half hour.

• After a New Year’s Eve of beer pong, Jell-O shots, champagne, and shame, Dupa and I found ourselves radiating 90 proof on the first morning of 2009. The solution? The Ponderosa buffet.

We found one within a few miles of us, plugged in the GPS coordinates, and snarled louder and more angrily at the computer lady each time the turn we took wasn’t into Ponderosa’s parking lot. When we finally arrived, tiny angels floated us from my car to our booth.

• At the time, Dupa and I thought we had created a new tradition. Indeed, the following year Chappy, TD, Baby Joey, and TJ joined us in the buffet line. Sadly, though, that “tradition” halted in its tracks in 2011. I honestly can’t remember how I spent 1/1/11, but I can guarantee I didn’t spend it hammering through plates of wing-dings and lumpy mashed potatoes.

• As for 2010; after Dupa, Chappy, and I left Ponderosa, we congregated at my place. And since I had just purchased A Very Sunny Christmas on Blu-ray and there were bowl games on…we ended up camped out in my living room all day like refugees in the war between booze and livers, watching Always Sunny and college football while noshing on hoagies, calzones, French fries, etc.

• One of my worst bar nights during a work trip came in San Diego in 2005. The night itself has been mildly referenced here from time to time, and surely deserves its own moment in the spotlight. But for now we’ll focus on the aftermath, which came early the next morning.

We were in town to throw our annual fall conference for our customers, which meant I had to report for work at 7:30 that Wednesday morning. I shuffled/stumbled down to the hotel’s conference space lobby at 7:52, wobbly and reeking of booze—despite having showered. My friend Michele took one look at me and abruptly said, “No.”

“Go back upstairs and go back to bed,” she ordered. “I’ll call you in a few hours for lunch.” I obediently turned around and shuffled/stumbled back; I awoke four hours later in a confused—but much more alert—state, to a ringing room phone.

• I, of course, was only following the precedent set before me by my coworkers. One of the first times I traveled for work, in March 2004, I was too new to be invited to the parties our customers threw. And since I hadn’t played in any of the reindeer games, I was in sound condition when my program manager—a former colonel who had spent part of his career in the Pentagon—stopped me in the main hall of the posh Orlando hotel where our conference was being held. In his often gruff and direct tone, he growled, “So you’re alive?”

Me: “Yeah…”
Him: “Weren’t you at the party last night?”
Me: “No sir.”
Him: “Ah, that explains it. *smiles* From what I hear, we have a few men down this morning.”

• After a bachelor party in 2004 where I got hit on by a stripper and blacked out before reaching the Pittsburgh city limits, I awoke on the porch of my mother’s house. And it’s not like I was sleeping on a chaise lounge chair; no, I was passed out on the hard concrete…in full view of her neighbors.

My car was at Tony’s, 18 miles away. My phone was…well, I didn’t know where my phone was. It was MIA. Most of my recollection of the night was, too. When I’d come out of my blackout, I had been leaning against a random van parked in the backstreets of the South Side at 3 a.m., waiting for I-don’t-know-who to come take me home. My mother looked out her kitchen window at 7:30 on a Sunday morning to find her 25-year-old son snoring on the concrete porch, next to a bottle of Miracle-Gro.

Then, to compound her pride, she had to drive me out to pick up my car from Tony’s wrecked house (the bachelor party had started there with three kegs and two strippers doing wonderfully lascivious things to each other) while I chugged Gatorade from her passenger seat and ruined her car’s upholstery with my booze-laced pores. I wonder if, in that moment, she regretted not having other children? You know—just so she could’ve hedged her bets.

I’ve always said that the hangover is god’s little way of telling you, “Job well-done.” Of course, the true measure of a man isn’t whether or not a hangover knocks him down; it’s how fast he picks up his next drink.